The singers who make up the popular Turkish music group Manifest were released under judicial supervision after testifying before the public prosecutor’s office on charges of “indecent acts” and “exhibitionism” that they face, following the dress and postures they exhibited during a massive concert held over the weekend in Istanbul.
According to Turkish media reports, the court assigned to the case imposed a travel ban on the group’s members and required them to report regularly to court, while the investigation launched by the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office into the 6 September concert at Küçükçiftlik Park continues. Manifest itself confirmed in a statement that “we have made our statements, and now we are free“, adding that they did not intend to offend the sensibilities of the public and will not comment further on the incident.
The investigation by the public prosecutor’s office addresses both the clothing worn by the artists during the concert and their own performance and gestures of sexual connotation during the concert held in the Istanbul district of Beşiktaş, which sold out all 12,000 tickets on sale and had been advertised as being exclusively for over-18s.
The very attire worn by the six members of the group sparked numerous reactions on social media in Turkey, both from those who considered it as part of the artistic freedom and those who considered the outfits too “provocative” and inappropriate for what is considered tolerable in Turkish society.
The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that the singers “engaged in behaviour that could negatively affect the moral values shared by our society”. Oktay Saral himself, a senior advisor to Turkish President Erdoğan, had called for legal action the day after the controversial concert, criticising the group’s performance.
Several concerts cancelled following the judicial investigation
The launch of the public prosecutor’s investigation and the legal action taken against the group’s singers has seriously affected their planned concert tour across the country. Sponsors, organising companies and town councils have already begun to distance themselves from the band and to cancel concerts scheduled for the coming days and weeks.
The first concert to be cancelled was Manifest’s planned concert on 20 September at the Selçuklu Congress Centre in the Anatolian city of Konya, for which all promotional pages, posters and advertisements have been removed. Another concert that the band was due to give on 14 October at the Yomra sports centre in the city of Trabzon – on Turkey’s Black Sea coast – has also been cancelled, according to Turkish press reports, while other concerts on their Türkiye tour might be cancelled in the next days.
The fact is that last weekend’s controversial concert in Istanbul, for which the prosecution is accusing the band of exhibitionism, could mark a turning point for the future of Manifest, a band formed in 2025 as a result of an online talent hunt competition called ‘Big 5 Türkiye’, which had since followed a meteoric rise to success.
With over 4.2 million monthly listeners on platforms such as Spotify, Manifest had planned a series of concerts across Turkey as part of their rise to fame… that are now up in the air. While debate continues among the group’s fans – with some criticising the cancellation of the concerts, and others the ‘out-of-place’ show held by the group in Istanbul – all eyes are now on the prosecutor, on whose decisions the very future of the group could depend.
VOTE
EDITORIAL TEAM
🧿 About us
.
Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
…
📣 Your ADVERTISING on Hispanatolia
.
🤗 HELP US WITH A DONATION:
💗 Paypal
